PL.US
Put Less in the Pie Hole
January 10th, 2010 by John Creighton in PL.US
Tags: Personal, Public Leaders
Magazines arrive at our home on a regular basis since the New Year with tips on how to lose weight. The banners across the covers scream “Lose Six Pounds in Two Weeks” and “19 New Ways to Fight Fat” and “Your Best Body Ever: Lose 10 Pounds in January.”
Magazine publishers and Madison Avenue know that a common American resolution is to lose unwanted weight. In just one hour watching television the other night, all kinds of companies pitched their products [...]
Leadership Lessons: Invictus the Movie
December 15th, 2009 by John Creighton in PL.US
Tags: Civility, Leadership, Public Leaders, Public Values
I was inspired by Clint Eastwood’s film, Invictus, starring Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon. The Nelson Mandela biopic was not as gripping as I’d hoped. The pace was slow and some of the characters were dull. My fellow Washington Times Communities blogger, Christian Toto, found the movie “superficial.”
I watched Invictus not from the perspective of a film critic. I was curious about what lessons I might learn from Nelson Mandela as portrayed by Morgan Freeman. I find Mr. Mandela to [...]
Building Public Will: Message or Structure?
December 13th, 2009 by John Creighton in PL.US
Tags: Culture-Structure, Public Leaders, WTC
What is required to build public will for action?
Public leaders often turn to public relations, marketing and public opinion research professionals to help answer these questions. This cadre typically advises that building public will is a matter of precisely framing issues and staying on message.
There is merit to this point of view. The ways in which people talk about an issue influences how they think about the issue and ultimately influences their actions and the political ideas they’re willing to [...]
Experience Trumps Place
December 9th, 2009 by John Creighton in PL.US
Tags: Citizen Centric, WTC
Think about all the places we go.
We go to work. We go to meetings. We go to school. We go shopping. We go hang out with friends. We go… The word go indicates that we leave the place we are for a different place. For most of our lives, when we wanted to begin a new activity we had to go to a different place.
The need to go to a place to do an activity creates a set of logistics [...]
Mind the Gap
December 6th, 2009 by John Creighton in PL.US
Tags: Citizen Centric, Technology, WTC
We live in a different world than we did just a few years ago. The Smartphone is transforming how we experience day to day life. Mobile phone calls, emails and text messages are mere harbingers of the ways in which the Smartphone is, can and will change our lives and our society.
It is not the Smartphone itself that is changing society. It is the fact that we are able to take internet access with us where ever we go. It’s [...]